DEARBORN – Students at the University of Michigan – Dearborn and Henry Ford Community College joined tens of thousands of others across the nation to focus on the problem of global warming on Jan. 30th and 31st.

As part of a national initiative called “Focus the Nation,” UMD and HFCC students aired an interactive webcast called “The 2% Solution.” Featuring Stanford University climate scientist, Stephen Schneider, and other experts, the webcast was part of an effort to educate youth about global warming, and influence future policies towards greenhouse gases and climate change.

“It’s great to see different student leaders coming together to support a cause this noble,” said UM student government president, Abdullateef Muhiuddin, to the Michigan Journal, the school paper.

The U.S. and the world will soon begin to take measures to seriously reduce greenhouse gas emissions as decided by the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Indonesia this past December. “We owe our young people a day of national, focused, non-partisan discussion of the decisions to be made in the next ten years, decisions that will profoundly affect their future, and indeed the future of all human generations to follow,” says the initiative’s website.

The student groups also hosted a Teach-In on Thursday where speakers from ACCESS and the Michigan Environmental Council discussed the issue of global warming and were followed by a legislative panel of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights Mayors John O’Reilly and Dan Paletko, along with State Representative Kathleen Law, and former State Representative Lana Pollack.

The challenge for these lawmakers and others across the nation is to “develop and implement effectively integrated economic, trade, social, and environmental policies on mitigating climate change,” according to the U.N. News.

The event served to “give some visibility to a global issue,” said Dr. Orin Gelderloos, a professor and the director of the Environmental Interpretive Center and Natural Areas at the University of Michigan — Dearborn. He also added that credit was due to these hardworking students who tackled an issue that no one country can solve by itself.

The “Choose Your Future Vote” on the initiative website urges people to vote on the top five priorities for change and then deliver the results to their representatives and all congressional offices after the Presidents Day recess on February 18th.

Voting for these priorities ends on February 12th.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says about the issue, “We know the science, we see the threat and we know the time for action is now.”